Wednesday, June 16, 2010

It amazes me how fast the chickens have grown - they are gorgeous, extremely independent and even willing to be held and snuggled. The other day, I was mowing the lawn and the girls decided they needed to investigate, so in their little posse of three, they came truckin on out to the front yard to see what was going down, as the above picture shows. As it turned out, the whir -whir of my reel mower did not impress them and they went back to the backyard post haste. Hopefully in another couple of months, we're going to be having some fresh eggs, assuming that these girls will leave their eggs in a place where I can find them. I've heard stories. We built a little chicken coop since that's what you're supposed to do, but as time as has gone by, we slowly discovered that "free range" has less to do with the health of whatever we as humans are going to consume and more to do with their health and quality of life. Since we've left the door to the coop open, the girls are loving life, roaming anywhere and everywhere they choose, hopping into the coop when it rains, and sleeping with the goats on the porch. These girls take their job as the poster chickens for the non-confined life very seriously. So - if we get fresh eggs it will be a wonderful bonus, but if we don't, well then there are three lucky chickens in my backyard living the good life - and three lucky humans loving it.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Well, it had to happen sometime. In the name of better living through fresh eggs, we acquired three chickens about one week before Easter. How original. The names aren't originals either - you can tell somebody has been watching a little too much iCarly and someone else has been playing a little too much Final Fantasy. (I plead guilty on the iCarly charges, but Final Fantasy - niet, nein, nanka! So these little girls - no cock-a-doodler's here thank you very much - are named Poachie, Huevo and Chocobo. They are Rhode Island Reds, they are priceless and in fact, I am so deeply attached to them that I can now add chicken to the list of things I cannot stand to eat because it might hurt my feelings.Chickens are awesome, I'm tellin ya! I never knew how cool they are. When they get to about 3 and 4 months old, they at least appear to be fully grown and they know no fear! It's sooo funny. We were really worried about how our cats were going to behave and keeping the chickens safe. Ha. And. Ha. We need not have worried - chickens do not have time to be bothered because they are so incredibly busy checked everything out - and I do mean everything. The back porch, under the back porch, the playhouse, the goats, the goats horns - you name it. They are also very sweet - I enjoy holding them and smoothing their feathers and they enjoyed being held and smoothed. They are sort of like clucking security blankets.